


i was always wrong, you all in white

by kendrasaunders



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, post 2x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 03:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5148179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kendrasaunders/pseuds/kendrasaunders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>richie and seth attempt to eulogize kate. they're not very good at it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i was always wrong, you all in white

They drive out at sundown to the oil rig.

Richie figures it best not to say anything during the drive. Not an apology, not a confession. Nothing. He lets Seth drive, even if Richie actually knows the location. Seth’s smart. He’ll figure it out.

They’re halfway there when Seth asks, “Did she suffer?”

Richie lies. “No.”

Seth says nothing in return. And Richie’s got this funny feeling, like Seth knows he’s being lied to. It’s a brother kind of thing. It’s a Seth knows Richie like the back of his hand kind of thing.

But he doesn’t reply. 

And he’s got that set in his jaw, the one that comes with any particular, Richie-related frustration.

“Something wrong?” Richie asks.

“Kate’s fucking dead, so-”

“Stupid question,” Richie says.

“Yeah.”

And that’s all.

 

The air’s got the scent of her blood to it. He can smell it about a mile down the road, and only because he’s looking for it.

He can’t find the scent of her body, though. The sweet smell of her skin. The familiar comfort of her hair.

He swallows.

“Seth,” he says.

“Richard.”

“There’s no body.”

Seth doesn’t stop the car. “Fuck does that mean?”

“I mean her body- I can’t smell it.”

Seth makes one of those disgusted faces. “You’re sniffing the air for her scent, Richard? You a bloodhound? Trying to get one last taste of her for the road?”

It’s nasty. Even for Seth. Uncalled for and mocking and kind of cruel. “I didn’t mean to,” Richard says. “I didn’t mean to get her killed.”

“And yet here we are, brother,” Seth says. “It’s not the fucking intent that counts.”

“She’s not _there_ ,” Richie says, almost like a plea. “I don’t know if someone took her body, or if she-”

“Got up and walked off?” Seth says. His voice cracks on the ‘off.’ “Right. Of course. My mistake. Let’s just turn this car around and go find her.”

Richie frowns. “What the fuck do want me to say, Seth?! That some fucking Culebras probably carted her off? Cut her open? Ate her fucking innards?”

“Shut up!” Seth roars. Swerves off to the side of the road. Stops. All signals that Richie’s about to get socked.

“You shut up!” Richie snaps. “You shut up, you never fucking listen, I didn’t- You can’t hate me for this, okay?! You can’t fucking hate me forever.”

“I absolutely can, Richard,” Seth snarls. Throws open the car door on his side and steps out. “Get out of the car.”

Richie crosses his arms. “No.”

“Richard fucking Gecko you get out of this goddamn car.”

“You’re just going to fucking hit me, so-”

“And then you’ll hit me fucking back, and we’ll get it all out nice and easy so Kate can have a goddamn proper funeral, you idiotic, miserable, piece of-”

Richie gets out of the car.

 

He gets three seconds before Seth grabs his collar and throws him onto the hood of the car.

He knows it’s three, because he counted.

Seth gets the first punch. It’s tradition. He rears his fist back a second time. “You son of a bitch. You fucking-”

Richie catches his fist. “Me? What about you? You almost- In that fucking mall, with that guy that killed Uncle Eddie-”

“There’s a difference between almost and actually following through, jackass!” Seth yells.

He can hear Seth’s heartbeat. Smell where he cut himself shaving. And normally, normally it doesn’t bother him.

But the wind’s still got Kate’s scent to it. “IT COULD’VE BEEN YOU!” He throws Seth back into the dirt. He can feel his fangs pop before he thinks better of it. And it’s better this way, isn’t it? To be a monster, if Seth wants him to be one?  “This could’ve been you! You could’ve gotten her killed before I even saw her again, before-”

Seth stumbles back to his feet. “So instead, that’s what I get. Right, Richard? You got her killed, and I never get to see her again.”

“I-” Richie clenches and unclenches his fist. Seth’s been getting a lot of hits at him, lately. And only some have felt deserved. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You keep saying that,” Seth says. Puts up his fists for round two. “But she’s still dead.”

Richie should probably throw a punch. Not a real one, the brotherly kind, the kind that Seth takes even though he knows better.

But he can’t seem to bring his arms up. “It’s not much farther,” he says. “We’ll walk.”

Seth clears his throat. The stance lingers. Not in his arms, but in the way he stands. He smooths his hair. “Richard-”

“Come on.”

And he expects something like a barking question, or at least a complaint.

He gets a nod. “Yeah,” Seth says. “Coming.”

The road’s mostly dust, at this point. It’ll scuff their shiny, black shoes.

That’s a kind of comfort, he supposes.

 

He’s right.

He wishes to hell he wasn’t. But he is. 

There’s no body. Kate’s gone. But her blood’s still there. Spread out in an uneven blob. Sweet-smelling and smooth at the edges.

And that’s wrong. Isn’t it? That it still smells like her, in the absent sense of a long gone perfume. That she was here, hours ago, alive and breathing and crying and-

All he’s got- All _they’ve_ got is her bloodstain. By this point it’s mostly drained into the wood.

He looks to Seth. He always looks to Seth. Doesn’t Seth like to have the plan? Doesn’t Seth want to say something? Anything?

Seth balls his hands into fists. “Where is she?”

“She was-” Richard gestures to the stain. Kate is not a stain. That is not Kate.

Kate’s gone.

“So where is she?” Seth asks, again.

“I don’t know.”

“How could you not know?” Seth demands. “Don’t you have some kind of sixth sense, Richard? Aren’t you psychic now, or some bullshit?”

Richie, for the life of him, cannot get the feeling of bile out of his throat. He wonders if Seth feels the same way. “I don’t know where she is.”

“You think someone turned her?”

“Not sure.”

“But you didn’t.”

“She didn’t want-” He stops, mid sentence. And pretends he can’t see the look that crosses Seth’s face.

“You said- She- How long did it take?”

“Seth-”

“How long did it take for her to bleed out, Richard?”

Wringing of hands. Silence.

“Answer the fucking question.”

He remembers every instant of it. “A few minutes.”

“Did it hit her lungs?”

“No.”

“How’d it hit her?”

The best course of action is to shut his eyes. “Stop.”

“Where did the bullets hit her? I want to know. I want to know how much pain-”

Richie claps his hands over his ears. He’s going to break. He’s going to scream and he’s going to break and he won’t come back. It hasn’t felt like this in months. He’d thought he was okay, he’d thought-

This is who he is. Almost as fragile as Kate. But half as angry. “Stop!” he says. To Seth, to the smell of her blood. “Stop! I am trying to protect you. I am trying to-”

“Like you protected her?!”

“It went through her back,” Richard says. “Two through her back. It punctured her stomach and her insides went septic as she bled out.”

“Perfect,” Seth says, sneering. “What a wonderful way for her to die. Just peachy.”

“Don’t do this,” Richie says. “Just- Be sad, Seth. Be sad like you were before. Don’t be angry. Not about this.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you,” Richie replies, in a cold swish. “Okay? Fuck you. Fuck you for thinking I meant for this to happen. Fuck you for making me tell you. Fuck you, Seth. Fuck you for letting her leave in the first place.”

“Fuck you for getting her killed.”

Richie takes off his glasses. Folds them gently into his coat. Proceeds to press his palms against his shut eyes. “I hate you I hate you I hate you I-”

A hand on his shoulder. “Richie. Richie, stop.”

It comes up like vomit. Like Kate’s blood. “She’s dead she died Seth and she doesn’t love me, she told me to burn and-” He can’t. He can’t. He’s not like this. He’s never been like this.

He’s not a child. He can’t let himself be a child.

“Richie, hey, she didn’t- You know I’d be pissed if I was dying, too, and-”

He doesn’t want Seth protecting him. He doesn’t want it anymore.

“I’m not like this,” Richie says, out loud. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know.”

 

 

They settle into their silence. 

It’s a familiar home.

Later, they’ll scream like animals. Like mourners in a great tragedy, with dirt on their palms and faces.

But they’ll do it separately. And that’s for the best.

Seth rubs his back. “Do you want to say something? For her?”

“Don’t,” Richie says. “Okay? I don’t need you backing down because you think I’m playing crazy.”

A swallow. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s what you always do.”

“I’ll start,” Seth says, without an apology. And Richie doesn’t mind. It would feel false anyway. “It’s fine. I’ll start us off.”

Richie says nothing. Pretends not to mind the absence of Seth’s hand on his shoulder, and crosses his arms.

Seth rubs his hands together while he tries to find the words. They’re both talkers, when they need to be, and Richie had always thought Seth to be quicker than this.

This is Seth pacing around Kate’s bloodstain like it’s a sinkhole. 

Richie finds a familiar sentiment in it. In the quiet, and in the whispering of the wind.

For a split instant, he thinks he hears her. He cranes his head towards the sound of her voice, and waits.

Nothing. She’s not there.

“Richard.”

Back to his brother. He gestures. “Go ahead.”

A steady nod. Steadier than Seth’s gaze, or his heartbeat. The kind of thing Richie notices. Has always noticed.

“Okay,” Seth says. Claps his hands. “Okay. Well, um. Kate.” There’s no casket. No flowers. “Katie. Was it short for Katelyn?” He glances to Richie.

“Don’t know.”

“She never told me,” Seth says. “I mean, I never asked. Fuck. I should’ve asked you, I guess. God damn it.”

“Seth-”

“Fuck,” he says, and his voice cracks. He presses his palms to his cheeks and weighs down his skin. “Fuck, fuck. I am so sorry, Kate. I am so, so fucking sorry.” The beginnings of a sniffle. “You were good, kid. You know that? You were so good for me and I shoved you out of a goddamn car. So you probably died hating me, or thinking I didn’t care and Kate- I- I-” He wipes his nose on his jacket sleeve. “I did care, Katie. I do. If you went to heaven like you should, and you can hear me. I do care about you, and I’m sorry. I know that’s not good enough. It’s what I’ve got.”

Richie says nothing at all. How could he? There’s no follow-up. There’s no reassurance. She’s still dead.

“Your turn, Richard.”

Richie manages to meet Seth’s gaze, though the weight of it suffocates him. “I don’t want to say anything.”

“You have to.”

(Don’t do this. I hope you burn in hell.)

He thinks of what he was going to say, and wonders if she’ll hate him for saying it now. If she could hate him any more than she does. Did. He doesn’t know. 

“Kate, I love you.”

Seth swears under his breath. “God damn it, Richard.”

“You could’ve said it, too!”

“She’s a child-”

“You know that’s not how you feel. And you stood there and you didn’t say it and it’s my fucking turn.”

Seth frowns so darkly it could put out the stars.

It’s unfair. It’s an unfair reaction that Richie feels is entirely undeserved. It’s not a competition. It can’t be, when Kate’s not even around. “I’m sorry I didn’t kick you out of the car,” Richie continues.

A change in expression. Surprise.

Richie runs a hand through his hair. “I thought I could protect you, Kate. I thought I could do better. And I couldn’t. It wasn’t about being the boss. It was-” He swallows. “It was about you. And I failed.”

He remembers crying. But he won’t cry now. It’ll just upset Seth.

“I do love you,” he repeats. “And I’m sorry about that, too.”

“Yeah,” Seth says. “Yeah, Katie. What he said.”

Richie gives him a look. “That’s how you want to say it?”

“Doesn’t really matter,” Seth says. Scuffs his heel against the wood. “She’s still dead.”

Richie draws his lips into a line. Feels an exhale coming, before remembering that he doesn’t need to breathe.

 

 

“This was our fault,” Seth says. “Before Lords or the Drugstore Cowboy routine. We kidnapped her for no goddamn reason, a whole family, and fuck, what are we going to do about Scott-”

“I thought it was destiny,” Richie says. “I know it’s stupid. I know you’re going to get on me but I thought it when Santanico was still giving me visions. I thought Kate was part of her plan, that we were fated or some shit.”

Seth stares at him for a good moment. Just him and Seth and the moonlight and Bloodstain Kate. “That’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Richie almost laughs. He feels like laughing. He feels like they’re both joking without meaning to, swallowing grief hand over fist for a cheap moment. “I know.”

“I mean, I saw her when I was to the wall, Richard, and I never went ‘Oh, this teenage girl must be my _fucking soulmate.’”_

“You’re not a romantic,” Richie says.

“And you are?” Seth asks.

Bloodstain Kate says nothing.

“No,” Richie says. “No. I don’t think I ever was.”

Seth rocks on his heels. “I miss her.”

Richie should reply, but finds that he can’t. Finds that the words to reply are somewhere between his ribs. To pull them out would be to unspool his insides. And he’s not ready for that. Not yet.

Instead, he listens to the night sky. 

She tells him nothing at all.

 


End file.
